Here’s Why You Should Switch Off For Wellbeing

Here’s Why You Should Switch Off For Wellbeing

Science is telling us to get back to nature for a more positive sense of wellbeing.

Here’s Why You Should Switch Off For Wellbeing

If you had any doubts about the real benefits of switching off and spending time in the great outdoors, science is now telling us to put those uncertainties to rest, as getting back to nature is proving to have a profound effect on our health and sense of wellbeing.

Going on a “techno-fast” isn’t easy, but it could do more for your wellbeing than you think. In fact, Richard Louv – author of The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature-Deficit Disorder – says we are genetically wired to need nature. More and more researchers believe our disconnection from nature affects our health. The biophilia hypothesis, first put forward by Harvard University scientist Edward O. Wilson, argues humans are innately attracted to nature and that our tendency to affiliate with living things separate from ourselves is genetically based.

Research spanning 10 years confirms strong, positive changes in people responding to trees, landscapes, forest trails and scenic vistas, not to mention the love and connection we feel to animals. Even watching fish in an aquarium has been shown to have therapeutic effects. There’s also a growing body of research to support the idea that when we fix our attention on screens, it’s a different kind of attention than we use when we’re immersed in nature – this, scientists call fascination. “Fascination is a state of immersion where you’re paying so much attention, you’re not aware you’re paying attention,” Louv says. “They state the best way to do that is go outside in nature.”

But what are the real benefits of spending time in nature? As well as lowering blood pressure, reducing pain, strengthening our immune systems and reducing the risk of many types of cancers, nature has a profound effect on our mental health, too.

Depression levels plummet, we can focus better, think more creatively and feel far less stressed. In hospitals, studies have shown that even patients who have a view of a natural setting heal faster than those who don’t. One 10-year study of recovering gallbladder surgery patients compared those who faced a view of trees with those facing a brick wall – the patients looking out at nature went home sooner. Another study found prisoners with a view of farmland rather than a courtyard fell ill
25% less often. “People who watch images of natural landscapes after a stressful experience calm markedly in only five minutes: their muscle tension, pulse and skin conductance readings plummet,” Louv adds.

Balancing Act

We live far differently today than we did even 100 years ago, when most people lived on the land and worked outside. Now, the vast majority of jobs require us to spend most of our time in front of a screen. And take a look around next time you’re on the bus or train – it’s rare to see someone who isn’t bent over their tablet or smartphone.

“The more high-tech our lives become, the more nature we need to balance it out,” Louv warns. The problem is that if we are spending most of the day in front of a screen, we are blocking out the majority of our senses – even the ones we’re not aware of – because we’re focusing on that screen. But not engaging all our senses is the very definition of being less alive, Louv says. “Who among us wants to be less alive? Yet that’s the environment we are increasingly creating,” he says.

Making It Work

Louv isn’t anti-tech – he loves his screen time as much as the rest of us – but says there has to be balance if we’re to avoid burnout. The constant interruptions caused by obsessively checking your phone – “I do it, too, I check my phone way too much,” Louv admits – for texts, social media alerts and emails, interfere with our ability to think clearly and to create, as well as impacting on how burnt out we are and how engaged and enthusiastic we feel about life.

UK mental health charity Mind found reduced depression in 71% of people who spent time walking in a woodland park, as opposed to those who walked through a shopping centre – 22% of this latter group felt their depression increased.

A recent study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that the more green spaces people had in their neighbourhood, the happier they were. “That has huge implications for what kind of neighbourhoods we build or rebuild in the future,” Louv says. “I think cities can become engines of biodiversity and we can actually have higher human density but more natural habitats, too.” Louv says conservation is not enough for the biodiversity we need to support our health. “Now we need to create nature where there never was nature.” Greening city rooftops, for example, could be just the start of a more natural – and healthy – existence for us all.

Natural Remedy

An increasingly common approach to tackling mental health problems is ecotherapy. Also called Green Care, this approach uses nature-based interventions in natural settings to help people feel better and recover from mental illness, and also to help them feel less isolated from society.

According to the World Health Organization, depression is predicted to be the second leading cause of disability in the world by 2020, following only ischemic heart disease. UK charity Mind reports that exposure to nature enhances mood and self-esteem, reduces feelings of anger, confusion, tension and depression, and improves physical health and a sense of connection with others.

Mind has funded 130 ecotherapy projects and helped more than 12,000 people in the process. One such project uses gardening and growing food to help people with mental health issues improve their sense of wellbeing. Green exercise therapy – walking in nature – has also proven to be effective. Exercising in nature is far more effective at improving low to moderate rates of depression than exercise alone and the more frequently we visit natural spaces, the lower the incidence of stress, according to Mind.

A Coventry University study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found children exposed to scenes of nature while exercising are more likely to experience health-enhancing effects. Kids aged 9 -10 were asked to ride a stationary bike in a series of 15 minute bursts, one group while watching a video of a forest track, the other with no visual stimulus. The children whose bikes were synched to the forest track had substantially lower blood pressure post-activity.

One Comment on Here’s Why You Should Switch Off For Wellbeing

Marilyn

December 30, 2014 7:17 am

Well being is living a healthy life and balancing technology as well. Leave the lap top in a separate room at home. Have 1 day a week no technology. Enjoy the environment you live in and take a breather when life gets too demanding. Read Mindfood, listen or watch your favourite music and movies and have a day just for you frequently. Diet and exercise is also important and mixing with people who lift you up!!